The effects of job incentives on the retention of nurses in Makueni District in Kenya

Abstract

Retention of the nurses in their job is an issue that raises a lot of concern to the human resource management of health. This calls for investment in the incentives to recruit and retain the health personnel in the poorer, rural, areas to serve the communities that need them most. The retention of the nurses is believed to be influenced by various variables. The main objectives of this study were to investigate the effect of job incentives on the retention of the nurses in Makueni District. The study specifically looked at how the working conditions, career opportunities of training and the management support, influence the retention of the nurses. A descriptive survey design was utilized and the data was collected using questionnaires and oral interviews. A stratified random sampling procedure was used to sample a total of 31 nurses out of 104 nurses in the public health facilities in the district. This comprised a 30% of the 64 nurses working in the district hospital (19), a 30% of the 20 at the health centers (6), a 30% of the 20 working at the dispensaries (6) and 3 exit nurses, giving a total of 34 respondents. The questionnaires were administered to those only willing respondents. This was taken because the health facilities are scarcely distributed in the district. The data from the questionnaires was assembled at one place and after sorting them out, an analysis was done using the descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and inferential correlation with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) .The results obtained were presented by the use of tables and graphs where applicable. The findings show that nurses in the public hospitals are poorly compensated for their work. They work under risky situations, arc mostly over worked and management is unsupportive. The researcher therefore recommends that proper working conditions be availed to the nurses as well as improving the management support. This could mitigate the problem of resignation and shortage of nurses in public health facilities.